Aidan J Taylor, Koji Yahara, Ben Pascoe, Seungwon Ko, Leonardos Mageiros, Evangelos Mourkas, Jessica K Calland, Santeri Puranen, Matthew D Hitchings, Keith A Jolley, Carolin M Kobras, Sion Bayliss, Nicola J Williams, Arnoud H M van Vliet, Julian Parkhill, Martin C J Maiden, Jukka Corander, Laurence D Hurst, Daniel Falush, Paul Keim, Xavier Didelot, David J Kelly, Samuel K Sheppard
Recombination of short DNA fragments via horizontal gene transfer (HGT) can introduce beneficial alleles, create genomic disharmony through negative epistasis, and create adaptive gene combinations through positive epistasis. For non-core (accessory) genes, the negative epistatic cost is likely to be minimal because the incoming genes have not co-evolved with the recipient genome and are frequently observed as tightly linked cassettes with major effects. By contrast, interspecific recombination in the core genome is expected to be rare because disruptive allelic replacement is likely to introduce negative epistasis...
April 29, 2024: MBio